He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.

That’s a nice sentiment, isn’t it? It emphasizes the importance of engaging youth for the sake of a better tomorrow. Nothing wrong with that right? Well, yeah, except that the quote is attributed to Adolf Hitler who uttered it in 1935 during a speech at the Reichsparteitag in order to encourage young people to join the Hitler Youth. I guess that in this case the source kinda trumps the sentiment. I mean Hitler was a vegetarian, but you probably won’t be very successful convincing carnivores to skip their steak by citing der fuhrer.

That’s a lesson that Alabama-based Life-Savers Ministries learned the hard way after putting up a billboard with the aforementioned Hitler quote in a bid to support “children’s education.” James Anderegg, founder of LSM, told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer that he was taking down the sign and “certainly never intended to cause confusion.” He added, “Herbert Hoover would have been a far better one to quote when he said, ‘Children are our most valuable resource.’ We are a children’s organization and had honorable intentions and nothing less.”

OK. Herbert Hoover would have been better for sure. Maybe even Whitney Houston, who drowned after ingesting cocaine, Benadryl, Xanax, marijuana and Flexeril, said it better when she sang “I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way…” I’m sure that had Mr. Anderegg run the ad copy past any normal child, they would have been all “Dude? Hitler?? Really??? Are you like, high or something?” How could something like this happen? Well, because Alabama! Anyway, here’s the tweet that started it all: